Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to arrested the only vive in local show that takes him into the belly of our criminal justice system. Cohosted by Mike Brooks and Atlanta criminal defense attorney, Dan Conaway of Conway and strict where PC. Thanks for joining this fine Saturday morning. I'm your host Mike Brook, flow with criminal defense attorney Dan Conaway and Dan.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Last week, a close associate of President Donald Trump. Mr. Roger Stone, he was indicted on a Thursday by a grand jury in Washington DC at us district court in Washington. And then the next morning at about 6:00 AM on Friday, he was arrested by the FBI at his residence in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Now some people are saying that, uh, the FBI overreached, uh, you know, the charges that he has been charged with or was indicted and arrested for were processed crimes. Tell me this, talk number one about the, the charges against him and we'll just talk about the whole raid, if you will, to warrant service in general.

Speaker 3: 1:09

Sure. Uh, Mike, this is a fascinating case from a, both a criminal defense point of view. From a prosecutorial point of view. We'll also, and also from a constitutional point of view, um, we got, the one thing that we've got is let's just start with the arrest itself. Um, and we talked about the indictment. Next Button, let's focus on the arrest. Um, in federal, in federal law, and on many state crimes as well, there are two ways to have somebody arrested to have the case processed, if you will. Uh, the first way is through what's called the turn in, that's negotiated between the lawyers and the prosecutors. That's done all the time in cases where you have someone accused of some type of white collar crime who has no criminal record, right. And oftentimes things like age are involved as well. And here, I don't know Roger Stone's age, but

Speaker 2: 2:23

he's a sage. He's 66, I think 66, somewhere around there.

Speaker 3: 2:28

He's up there. Yeah. So you have a nonviolent offense. All white collar process crime. My understanding is he has no criminal history and certainly a turnon is something that I assume his lawyers would have attempted right. To negotiate with the prosecution said note about it. Right. And it's easy. You just call the prosecutor. Prosecutor says lesson, we've gotten indictment clients got to turn himself in here in Atlanta. We go down to federal courthouse. Sure show up on the 16th floor. That's the marshal service. It's usually I've turned ins or in the morning Marshall's comes out, get your client, client goes in, is processed, pops up in front of a magistrate there, right above on the floors above Florida 17 1819 okay. And go in for the magistrate. You and the prosecutor have either a already agreed on bond or to bond is worked out and then boom, that's it. Your clients in the holding area on the 16th floor with the marshals to three hours Max in and out.

Speaker 2: 3:47

Now what did it made a difference since number one, the grand jury and the case is being worked out of US District Court in Washington DC where actually he was a rain this week and, and pled guilty, pled not guilty to all of the charges and, but he lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. So how, how would that work out with the, with the, um, case out of Washington DC, the grand jury had Washington, DC, the arrest warrant out of Washington DC and him living in Fort Lauderdale. Well, there you have a choice

Speaker 3: 4:20

of venues that can be negotiated between the prosecution and the defense won. You can first appear in front of a federal magistrate in Florida. So you go down there and you're arrested. There, you have a right to see a federal magistrate there who could then either set bond or have the bond issue. Uh, if the government moves for detention. Yeah. Uh, which I don't believe they did.

Speaker 2: 4:48

No, they did. They, he, he said, he said in an interview with signature bomb is, I'm heard, I heard it was, you know, there was some money involved. Yeah. It was pretty typical. Yeah. But he was really, yeah. And an hours. And if it's like a 20, let's say it's$50,000 signature bond, right? There's actually no

Speaker 3: 5:02

money involved. You're just signing an Iou. Okay. So boom, let's assume you get the signature bond in Florida, then it's agreed that you'll appear in federal court in DC. That's what he did on a specific date. Right. So that's fine too. So all that's negotiated. So the question is, is why the raid, the raid is highly, highly unusual. The Manafort one or the Koan ones, I would suggest have more merit to them as far as having a raid because I believe that the government's position would be, we thought there was evidence there that we needed to cs at the time we made the arrest. Right. Okay. Well maybe there was, maybe there wasn't.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Yeah, they served a search warrant as well as the arrest warrant. Right. At his home at home.

Speaker 3: 5:58

But here you've got a 66 year old man. We're under all normal circumstances. There would be a turnoff. Is that there's just would be. Yeah. Uh, so why the raid? Why the agents? Why are they yanked out of their bed in their underwear in their pajamas? He and his wife at four in the morning actually had the warrant, was served at 6:00 AM 6:00 AM okay. Well, they always, they always come between four and seven. If you're going to get raided just for everybody out there, foreign 7:00 AM is, is the time. That's just when they do it. Normally I knew I've been in a lot of ward servers and usually it would be around first light, you know, or at six o'clock. It's always when you had just waken up, the coffee's not made yet. Maybe you're in your pajamas, right when the neighbors are coming out. Uh, the, it's always the standard time. So why the rate? So I think there's questions there. I think there's interesting points for both sides. Prosecution can use it. Say we thought, you know, this was the situation that warranted a rate. Uh, for whatever reason the defense can use it too though. And say why the raid isn't this about government overreach, government intimidation, those kinds of arguments. Yeah. So we don't know.

Speaker 2: 7:18

And usually when you are going to serve an arrest warrant slash search warrant, what they usually do, uh, because I've been part of these before and part of planning, um, uh, uh, warrant service is what you call it is they'll go by and they'll see a, okay, are there any cars? There is his known car there. Are there any other vehicles? There were many. Any friends or associates, they usually go by and no run the tag and see who they belong to, that kind of thing, you know, so we know what happened in this particular case, not sure. Um, but there was a decision apparently that was made by the FBI that they will go ahead and do it this way. And you know, they didn't knock the door down. They came up and knocked on the door and he came down to open the door and a, and they talked and then took him into custody a while. Some other agents were there that when hadn't served the search warrant.

Speaker 3: 8:13

Okay. So from a, from a law enforcement point of view, what's the purpose of that in this case?

Speaker 2: 8:19

Well see there's, there's little could be some things we don't know about the people about what was going on, who was there at the house where they thought was there at the house. We don't know, you know, but whatever, whatever the decision was made was made by the case agent who was doing that, that they would go ahead and do it this particular way. You know, there's a, there's so many what ifs that go into play when you're planning one of these for the safety of the people inside that the warrants being served on and the safety of the police or the, in this case, the FBI who are also serving to war.

Speaker 3: 8:53

Well, you do, and it's interesting be because brings up another point and that is when we get to this in a minute, and that's the whole equal protection, equal justice argument that's floating around in this case is, um, uh, one, uh, turnin would be customary on this kind of case if this was a wire fraud case. Yeah, right. We embezzled money from a bank from bank a and we transferred it to an offshore account in the Caymans. Okay, that's bank fraud, wire fraud, and plain vanilla. Okay, you're 60 years old, 65 years old. You've never been in trouble with law. You decided that you needed some extra money and you allegedly wire this money to the Cayman Islands and the two, the amount of half a million dollars. Okay, okay. You get a turn in on that case. This is what happens. Now, on another hand, let's say you're a drug dealer. You've never been arrested for drugs, but you're accused of allegedly selling drugs. Well, do you get a Turnin will possibly not. Right? Right. So was stone treated justly or injustly because he was not treated as your average white collar crime person charged with a white collar crime on the, he was treated more like a drug dealer. But on the other hand, as as a criminal defense lawyer, I say that's nonsense. We need to have the turn in in this situation. But on the other hand, why shouldn't the drug dealer get a Turnin or B? Why shouldn't Roger Stone receive the same treatment as the drug dealer?

Speaker 2: 10:30

And in this case, basically he did, except except they didn't use a ram on his door. They didn't ram him the right. That's right because, and the only reason they would do that, let's say with the drug dealer is if they thought that there were drugs or guns inside and uh, there was a possibility of evidence. There was no sale on your knees. There was no, there was nothing like that. Right. We're going to talk more about about the arrest, exactly what happened, the the indictment and the charges and where does this go from here? Coming up next on our rested with Mike Brooks and grow with defense attorney Dan Conaway on the new talk, one a six seven. This is arrested with Mike Brooks and Atlanta criminal defense attorney Dan Conaway. Thanks for doing it into arrested with drugs and criminal defense attorney Dan cutaway. It also, if you haven't picked up dance book, arrested battling America's criminal justice system. And I advise you even if you've never been arrested before, but if you want to learn more about the criminal justice system, this is the book to get. You can go to where you can get through Amazon, Barnes and noble, or you can go to the website, a rusted book.com pick it up. I guarantee you'll enjoy is a, it's a, it's a great read, George, talking about Dan, we're talking about the arrest of Roger Stone, who was a, uh, personal friend, a associate of a, of president, Donald Trump and a who was under investigation by Robert Mueller. The special counsel and I'm 40 went to break. We were talking about the, the arrest, you know, was it an overreach by the government? Should he have been turned to me? He should have turned himself in. But you know, we don't, we don't know exactly all the particular details, but if he was going to turn himself in, I was thinking about this at the break. If he was going to turn himself in, how would they go about doing that? After the indictment comes down on Thursday and US District Court in Washington DC. Would the prosecutor there or someone from the special council's office contact Roger Stone directly or contact his attorney? How would, how would all that play out if dad had done that?

Speaker 3: 12:43

Yeah. Um, all this would normally been negotiated ahead of time. In other words, the, uh, uh, the defense attorneys representing Roger Stone, what is known through negotiations with the prosecution that the indictment was coming and, uh, they would have at least they would have known, they wouldn't have known as specific date, but they would have known that at some point in indictments coming. And there's some indication of that. And again, I don't know this, but there's some indication on the basis of some things that Roger Stone has said publicly in the past about how he gets, he feels he's going to get indicted. He's there for governments. Probably gonna indict me some, he's made some salmon.

Speaker 2: 13:19

Oh, you may never statements over the last couple of couple of weeks.

Speaker 3: 13:22

So, uh, that would, that could lead to the conclusion, I don't know, uh, that he was in touch with his attorneys and his attorneys were in touch with the Mueller team and the age case agents. And so there was communication going on because what could have happened was there could have been an a simple agreement, right, to have Roger Stone show up in Washington DC in front of the Federal Federal Magistrate there, which is where the case is, right. And then simply gone through the process of the Turnin and then having the bond hearing if it's a signature bond. It was probably negotiated ahead of time. Uh, or certainly the prosecution had no objection to detention because they wouldn't have asked if, if you're asking, just to back up a little bit, just to make sure this makes sense. The prosecution has the right to move forward detention constitutionally in this, in our country there's a presumption for bail or for bond because you're presumed innocent and therefore you have the right to a reasonable bail.

Speaker 2: 14:23

And he had never been arrested before are we don't know of any criminal charges being brought against him ever,

Speaker 3: 14:28

ever. So you've got someone who, uh, the government did not move to detention for, there's no basis for detention. Uh, when you look at the federal statutes that weren't detention, things like prior criminal history, uh, a crime of violence, these are the kinds of things that are used to detain people and not allow for bail. Uh, when the government moves to detain somebody. So in this case, the government clearly didn't move to today's buddy a meeting Roger Stone, and they offered a, they all agreed on a signature bond and all a signature bond says, let's say you got a$50,000 signature bond. What does that mean? It means that you sign an Iou. It says, I the accused, uh, do you hereby promise to pay to the federal government$50,000? If I don't show up for court as directed, that's okay. Or if I violate any other bond conditions like saying I'm not supposed to consume alcohol to an excessive extent or use illegal drugs. Right.

Speaker 2: 15:35

Or travel or travel outside the district up here. You know, he said no, how would even have, I don't even hold a passport so I wasn't a flight risk. He doesn't have to capacitate didn't have, well normally, and he's got a point

Speaker 3: 15:45

there because normally the government always moves for your passport, right. One of the first things you do is the defense lawyer. You should make sure that your client brings his passport to turn into the pretrial services officer supervising your bail release. I got Ya. And they hold onto it. Yeah. So, uh, you know, all that's totally normal stuff. No big deal. Um, but clearly in this situation, everybody agreed the Roger Stone should get bond and under federal law, I don't see any basis from not getting bonds. So why do you have somebody who doesn't have a passport even? Right. Why can't he just traveled to Washington DC? Get himself a signature bond? Yeah. And then leave

Speaker 2: 16:29

because the, ultimately he did that old know on Tuesday. Anyone had done it on Thursday, whatever day of the raid was. Right. As the right defense lawyer. That had been, my argument would be what the heck? It's a waste of tax free. If nothing else, the waste of tax payer, we've tours. Gotcha. It's not cheap. Don't have all those, this federal agents don't come cheap. No, no, that's for sure. Comes in our 25% of the get over, you know, for availability paperwork. I've had prosecutors literally tell me, and you know, it is what it is, right. They'll say, ah, come on Mister[inaudible], we can't do a turn on this one. This is what these guys live for. I mean, and they love this stuff. Oh sure. Hey, you know, all in 16 hours. I, so we know that he was arrested. He did show up and US District Court on, uh, on Tuesday of this week. And uh, he pled not guilty. So what are the, what was he actually charged with? Because this is a special counsel that was that sitting looking at Donald Trump and his associates for Russian collusion. But I didn't see any charges dealing at all with Russian collusion or anything at all with Russia. Well, and that's the, uh, that's the interesting issue here is that is a,

Speaker 3: 17:52

this is another one of those cases where, you know, I keep saying this, but again, I hope everyone will listen and if you listen to folks listen up now, if all the other indictments that have come down through the Mueller investigation, uh, which all involve, uh, lying to somebody or other, right, making misstatements or lie lying to her, making false statements to the FBI or to Congress to remember. Cause this was during a voluntary interview, he made these, he agreed that he got a letter, he went down there and talk to the whole Connie and he talks to the congress. I believe it was with private. We don't have the transcript. Yeah, it was supposed to be released months ago, but it's being held up by the federal government, uh, for security purposes apparently. So we don't know what Mr. Stone said, except the snippets that are in the indictment.

Speaker 2: 18:42

And then he said, you know, there was some, uh, some texts or emails. I mean, this guy, he's been out in front, hey, you know, if I was his attorney, I want to go, Roger, you know, you need to shut up. Shut up. No. So what's what he was on the Sunday talk show, talking about, well, it was taken out of context and everything else. But what's the, what's the role when the government wants to question you? One, shut your mouth. Because the quickest way to the jail cell, whether you're Roger Stone or whether you're Joe Schmoe, right, is through your own big fat mouth. Even if you think that you have it down and you know exactly what to say, get a lawyer younger up in shorter Laura, or I'll shut up and call Conaway and struggling if this, if this indictment, it

Speaker 3: 19:29

doesn't scream that out of there. What does say, you know, so, uh, the here, so here, Mr. Stein is under indictment out for making false statements to a congressional committee. So that's not good. There's Austin obstruction charge and witness tampering charge, which is interesting. Yeah, it's interesting because I, I see the government's argument in the indictment and again, we don't know all the evidence and all the facts yet, right. We don't know who was in front of the grand jury and you know, we don't know. But what, what I read in the indictment is a lot of this is about essentially about, or at least a portion of it is about urging Roger Stone, urging the person who's mentioned as I believe number two, right. In the indictment. Unidentified individual number two, yeah. Think they can invite individual number one is Julia massage. I've fun if I remember that my indictment credit could be, well, I mean he's the guy in the right what the NBC, the NBC in London. I mean Lou Rawls is hanging out in there, but you know, I know he's hanging out in there. So, uh, so supposedly, um, there's witness tampering there cause Roger Stone is saying in the diamond and says he's urging him to invoke his fifth. Right. Well, the question, and let's just focus on that, right? It's spelled out in the indictment that the Roger Center is saying, you know, you need to invoke your Fifth Amendment right. Well, is that witness tampering? Because what he's saying is you should invoke your constitutional right against self incrimination, right? So how has that witness tampering to quote the constitution? Now you are the subject of the investigation and the subject of the environment in diamond. But at this point, he's not at this point, remember, there's no indictment. This is back in 2017 and he's voluntarily giving information to Congress. So to me, witness tampering is very clear. When you say, listen, uh, I'll give you$10,000 if you keep your mouth shut or listen, if you don't take the$10,000 then I've got a bullet for your head, right?

Speaker 2: 21:44

That would be like, and what he said, you know, he said, well, it was, it was taken out of context on what he was saying to this guy

Speaker 3: 21:52

saying, you don't invoke your fifth memorize. Don't get yourself in trouble. So I don't know. We'll, we'll see where all this leads. But it's interesting and there is no discussion there. What's not in there is equally important. And why don't we take that up next?

Speaker 2: 22:05

Well that sounds good because he is saying this is a politically motivated investigation and you know what, it might just be. It got a point. And what are the other questions is who we, we even talked about on my show, um, on uh, new talking about six, seven was how did see it and find out how were they there. We'll talk about that at all. A lot more coming up. It's arrested with Mike Brooks and criminal defense attorney Dan Conaway on the new talk one oh six seven. This is arrested with Mike Brooks and Atlanta criminal defense attorney. Damn Conaway, thanks for joining us everybody. Glad you're staying with us on a restaurant with Mike Roach and chrome with defense jury Dang gone away. And by the way, pick up the book arrested Dan wrote a fantastic book on bat lead America's criminal justice system. If you haven't read it yet, you're doing yourself an injustice. So you, you can go to their website, arrested book.com or you can pick it up via Amazon and also Barnes and noble. Dan, we've been talking about Roger Stone, the arrest. Now we're talking about some of the charges and you know, and whether or not this truly is a politically motivated investigation that Roger Stone says he believes it is.

Speaker 3: 23:18

Well and I think there's obvious, uh, obviously an argument who made there that, that it is, there's also an argument that it's not, there's an argument that you have a Mueller who is a dog, a prosecutor who was doing his job and working his way through the investigation and where he sees crimes, he makes charges. So, you know, there's both sides to that argument. Certainly that's what the prosecution would say in this case or about Mueller would say. Um, on the flip side, you have the argument that is politically motivated. Um, what I find also, what I find interesting in all this is what's not in the indictment. And Mike, you talked about it earlier. What's not. Any indictment is any allegation of cybercrime. Uh, because this comes down to right, a cybercrime directed against the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, uh, Hillary Clinton's campaign, and specifically John Podesta, right. Who was the chairman of pain management, have campaign manager, right. Uh, for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Um, and so what's not in there is for instance, a conspiracy to commit wire fraud can be, or to commit to computer trespass or to commit a conspiracy to commit a espionage against, uh, through a foreign actor writing Russians, uh, or even Julie massage, maybe, uh, you know, so, uh, to, to collude with them, to commit the cybercrime of computer trespass and stealing of the computer. Trespass means in this case. Yeah, it's very simple. It means stealing private emails by hacking into Podesta's the server at the DNC and Hillary's and getting into Podesta's email account and then stealing emails. There's no, they'll come in any of that in here. Two visits. Does that include those emails that uh, Hillary, you arranged that they might have 30,000, we don't know, but you know, or allegedly erased of allegedly raped. And you know, we have like we have like three issues like you, there's issues all over the place for both the prosecution, the defense, um, and it does make this a really interesting case from a criminal law point of view. Um, but um, for me a couple of things stand out and looking at this from a criminal defense point of view. One is, well we don't know is what could be in the indictment but it's not, and you always have to start with that. As a defense lawyer, what is potentially what evidence potentially could be used in what's called a super seeding indictments? What does that mean exactly? What does that mean? A superseding indictment? Is this the prosecution? Sometimes? Yup. We'll indict an individual and they won't include all the charges that they believe they could prove. They'll leave some out and they'll leave evidence out that's then not subject potentially arguably not subject to discovery because it's not relevant to what's in the indictment. Then what they do is prosecution comes to you, the defense lawyer and they say you, your client really should start talking now. Right. And cooperating because right now we've only charged him with a and B. We haven't charged him with C and d. A. I see what we can and we'll share a little bit of that evidence with you. And they give you some of the evidence and they say, plus your client knows what he did it anyway. He knows he did. Sandy, we know he did. Sandy, it's just not in the indictment. So if you don't cooperate with us, if you don't get on the team USA bus and strap yourself or bus team Mahler busts and strap yourself in for the ride, then we will supersede the indictment. Meaning we will reunite, which they have the right to do. And then we'll include a, B, c, and, and that's when they turn the screws. It's like your head, if you imagine a federal investigation, right? Imagine that you're, you're the defendant, you're the accused, your head is a watermelon and your, this is how it's described as the clients. Yeah. Your head is the watermelon and that watermelon isn't a vice like you know at home, the vice that you hold a piece of wood and no. Yeah, right. All right. What's the federal government does is they stick your head in that fight through the first the time and they turn it just a little bit like a nice dude students episode and they say, all right, yeah, you're answering the vice and Pfister stone. We get we may, we have CN date now. I'm not saying they have seen, I'm saying they might have, we don't know. But what they'll say to the fence lawyer is say, Mr. Stone, if you don't start talking now we're just going to turn that vice both through a superseding indictment and that's when the pressure is really going to start to squeeze that watermelon, which is your head, your liberty, and your freedom. So is their potentiality for those kinds of substantive charges here? When will, when will we find out or when will his defense team find out if there is any more, you know, Eh, one that may already know. Okay. Or at least it's been intimated to them, right? Bob Mueller to, they're already know it doesn't exist that this is it. Meaning this is the indictment. There's no more to indict on three. They could find out shortly if they don't know yet the answer to that question. Right. They're going to learn that answer quite, quite soon over the coming weeks and months for sure. Huh. It's one of those initial discussions that you always have with the federal government when you're dealing with a client who's been indicted, right. Especially on process crimes like these. Interesting. Now he was arraigned on Tuesday of this

Speaker 2: 29:41

and what happens at the arraignment?[inaudible] he pled not guilty. What happens at the arraignment in federal court and then from there, where does the case go?

Speaker 3: 29:52

Okay. Uh, first he's ran, he's pled not guilty. Right? Uh, he's got his bail. All the, all what? It's seven charges were read. Yup. Okay. Everything's done. And uh, they don't read the, just as a very, uh, it's very interesting. Side Note, very quickly you can waive the reading or you waive the reading. Okay. And why do you waive the reading of the indictment? It's because up until about a hundred years ago, most people couldn't read. In all seriousness. Yeah. If you go back 200 years ago, or I found here at 1500 or 300 years ago, right? The charges were always read to the accused in open court because he accused, couldn't read them. Only about 10% of the population could read. Gotcha. Now most people can read. So there's no, there's no reason to read it and go up in court. But that's why you always have that question answered. The question from the judge, do you want this answer? Do you want the indictment read to your client, right? And the lawyer always says no, so you can read it. So from there after Raymond, now we've entered the discovery period. That's why the flesh of the facts and the evidence and the information that the government is going to use to try to prove Mr. Stone guilty of these charges will then be given to the uh, defense. They may already have it or they'll have it very, very quickly. And the judge will make sure that, and that's when everything will be reviewed, all the discovery will be reviewed and then they'll get into negotiations as to how the case is going to proceed. And it's interesting in this case because you've got, um, it, it's interesting in this case because to me as the defense attorney, you have an interesting issue here with respect to this raid and with respect to whether this is a politically motivated case or not. And that is this notion of equal protection under the law. Okay. And equal justice under the law in a way. The federal government arguably, did Roger Stone a favor with the raid? How so? He's Roger Stone, you know, he's kind of known as a provocateur,

Speaker 2: 32:14

a character he's got, he's got, he's got a tattoo on the bonus back just below his neck of the face of Richard Nixon. Didn't know that until I read that in the end. Did you see it when he came out of a, out of his initial hearing, he came out, we were watching it on live on Mike Brook show and he came out with his arms raised at his hands. You know what victory, like, like Nixon. So you know, you have someone seeking the limelight, right? And in a way they

Speaker 3: 32:40

gave him the limelight. He's more famous than ever now because most people would probably never heard of Roger Stone. Right? So on the one hand they've helped him, but at the same time was the, is this case in the raid especially used to intimidate others to not speak out and not speak against the government or against the Mueller investigation because they fear gun toting gestapo tactics from their own government coming into their house, pointing guns in their faces and doing all these other things that it may not, it might be good for Roger Stone and his PR may not. That's up to Roger Stone to decide, but certainly for your average citizen is a terrifying prospect and therefore a, uh, a slam on free speech and freedom of expression.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Well, we'll definitely keep an eye and see where this Roger Stone case goes. And you know, there's a possibility that um, the Mueller investigation could be close to being done. So says acting Attorney General, uh, Matthew Whitaker and he should know more than anybody else he should know. He absolutely should. Coming up on arrested was empire star Jessie Smollett, was he the victim of a hate crime in Chicago that all are more coming up on arrested with Mike Broach and criminal defense attorney Dan Conaway on the new talk one oh six seven. This is arrested with Mike Brooks and it went to criminal defense attorney. Damn Conaway. Thanks for joining us on arrested with Mike Brooks. Story dead Conaway. And again, let me just remind you, if you haven't picked up Dan's book arrested battling America's criminal justice system. I'm telling you, he went, he did a lot of research and even if you've never been arrested, even if you've never been part of the criminal justice system, and hopefully you never will, if you want to get a good background on, on, on the American criminal justice system and, and just all the intricacies of who is involved in a criminal justice system, pick up Dan's book arrested. You can get it on their website@arrestedbook.com or as everybody gets books from Amazon as well. And also Barnes and noble. So do yourself a favor. Pick it up. So was there a hate crime against a, uh, movie star Garrett televisions? Dark issue? Will the series empire, uh, Jesse Small, it's a small that says that he was the victim of an assault by, uh, some folks, some possible perpetrators, allegedly, uh, that while they were beating him up, they said this is Magda country. So what does that mean? Uh, is this a hate crime from first looking at this? I don't see it as a hate crime, but to make something, you know, yes. It's every, every prime is hateful. You know, it's terrible, but, uh, to have an assault there, you know, there's some jurisdictions that have, if it's a hate crime, there's, there's additional penalties, that kind of thing. But was this truly a hate crime? Dan, tell us a little bit about what exactly happened.

Speaker 3: 35:54

Well, as far as we know, and again, it's, the investigation has just started. Um, I don't believe it at this point, any arrests had been made. No, I know they're still looking at it, but, um, this is an interesting situation because it goes to many things we've talked about in the past. Mike, about hate crimes and hate speech and all this kind of stuff. Um, and uh, in this particular case, apparently from what I know about it, and again, I wouldn't be very clear. I'm reading, these are things that I've read through, uh, various articles. The Internet. Yeah. Um, but it appears that, uh, Mr. Small, it was walking home at two in the morning and a was, that's when he was beaten up. He was beaten up by two people with masks on. Um, you have to wonder why everybody's out at two in the morning. Chicago when it's Siberia out there. But apparently he was getting home from, um, uh, from, he was getting home from going somewhere that evening and he was a sailed and beaten up. And, uh, Mr Smollett, my understanding is that he has declared himself to be a gay and also he's a African American. Um, at the same time, even though the perpetrators were married masks according to the articles, he's indicated that he could tell that the, the perpetrators were white based upon, you know, this skin color he could see through the mask. So that's the allegation.

Speaker 2: 37:18

So we really don't know the motivation, you know, was the attack because uh, he was gay or they perceived him to be gay or you know, they said this is a country.

Speaker 3: 37:29

Well, and see that's where I think this is an interesting situation because it brings up this argument about hate speech. Whereas if you ask certainly members who are opposed to, uh, president Trump, uh, and that particular slogan make America great again, right? Because his slogan, I think he copyrighted or got a, got a copyright on it, got protection for it right after Romney lost the election in 2012 for our call correctly. Um, to a lot of people, this call is a rallying cry and a positive thing. On the other hand, to a whole lot of other people, this is literally hate speech and is seen as hate speech.

Speaker 2: 38:14

Some people, some people are even saying that. Yeah. You know, just seeing Donald Trump is a trigger for them. You know, that's true. God's sakes. Have students during the election at, uh, at every that were, that were triggered and they were scared because they saw Donald de Donald Trump's name Trump written in chalk on the sidewalk. Come on man, give me a break.

Speaker 3: 38:37

Actually, I actually had an intern, uh, who, uh, whose, I won't say I won't say his name right, but he's extremely liberal and he's a wonderful, a intern who worked for my office and he was making fun of that actually. Cause he went to Emery, he was making, he was making fun of it and he, he's, he's, I mean he has a card carrying Liberal Democrat. He didn't have to go to a safe space. No, that's good. That's good to know. Um, you know, the bottom line, and again, to be very clear, hate speech is not a crime in this country. We were constitutionally protected right in France. You can get arrested here, you're fine. But

Speaker 2: 39:13

well some Bellona said that the red make America great again. Hat was the equivalent of like a Ku Klux Klan Hood. Rarely.

Speaker 3: 39:23

That's right. So we've got, we've, it's a, it is obviously something that brings up an inflammatory issue. Um, I know that, I know of people who are terrified to wear that hat for fear. I have a friend who lives in New York who, I won't say who this person is. We joked, I said, I think you should, um, wear that hat and walked down the lower west, the upper west side and he said, dog

Speaker 2: 39:50

the data. You know what I mean? So it goes both ways, right? The bottom line here in this case. Well, let me, let me point out too. I was just reading something this week that even Chicago police, they have been looking around for any kind of, um, video from businesses, homes, people who lived where the attack took place and they have yet to find any video of the attack.

Speaker 3: 40:15

And as a police officer, that's it. As for a police officer, Mike, in this day and age, that's kind of unusual in place like downtown Chicago, is that right? Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. It would certainly be something I would bring up as a defense if I were defending these alleged perpetrators. I would say, where's the video? Right, right. As the legitimate question. Uh, but in this particular case, I think, um, I think this is an issue where, um, as the investigation proceeds, I will say this much and that is, is that, um, I think there's a question there and I have an opinion on this. Uh, does, um, uh, Donald Trump who's facing reelection has gained through groups like black set, um, uh, and is gaining through the polls greater and greater minority support, meaning from blacks and Hispanics. Um, there is a movement called[inaudible]. I believe that's the proper name, uh, that is very pro Trump, which is, uh, uh, were, uh, African American individuals are supporting Donald Trump.

Speaker 2: 41:20

There's even the walkaway can walk away campaign. I've had Brandon struck on my show before the job started that right. And he is a, he is a, he was Liberal Democrat and he's, he's a gay hairdresser as

Speaker 3: 41:33

Shitty to remember the Lgtbq. Right, exactly. So you've got a lot of support out there, especially with the, um, for Donald Trump's agenda and for the way the economy's going, things like that. So I think if these allegations proved to be true and have meat on the bone, um, I think that this would be an opportunity, um, for president Trump and members of his team to come out and explain why and what they see as the true meaning of Manga. Um, to clarify why this is not hate speech. And further to condemn the use of the term Manga that they do not see as hate speech and to condemn the use of it as hate speech. Um, and I think that would, that would, I think that would be the proper thing to do here because if this allegation is true, then you have individuals in my opinion[inaudible] mean these perpetrators. And again, nobody has been arrested yet. We don't know. But we have the bottom line is that it appears based on what we know so far is you have perpetrators attacking a gay African American individual and using Magda as a term of hate speech. And so therefore if the allegations proved to be true, then I would suggest there should be pushed back, right? Uh, from the Trump administration on the use of this term as hate speech.

Speaker 2: 43:00

Well that's the whole thing. Uh, did this actually really happen? Is this exactly what they said? Uh, does the complainant, if you will have an agenda, these are all things that we don't have the cargo police are going to be looking into to see whether this was credible or not. Hey, thanks everybody for joining us again. This lovely Saturday morning on a rusted with Mike Brooks and criminal defense attorney gang Conaway. We will see you back right here.

Speaker 1: 43:27

Eight eight again next Saturday for respite. Stacy, thanks for listening to arrested with Mike Brooks and Atlanta criminal defense attorney, Dan Conaway. Well, this show provides general information. It does not constitute legal advice. The best way to get guidance on your specific legal issue is to contact a lawyer. For more information or to schedule a meeting with an attorney. Please visit Conaway and strickler.com.